


Violet

by shinymailbox



Series: Purple [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Byleth being blank as ever but also cute, Gen, Gossip, Jeralt does his daughter’s hair pass it on, Mild ableist undertones, No Spoilers, Tiny Ashen Demon..., like TWO whole curse words.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 10:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinymailbox/pseuds/shinymailbox
Summary: The various mercenaries that have worked with Jeralt are always left wondering one thing:What the hell is up with his daughter?





	Violet

**Author's Note:**

> ~I’m back on my bullshit~ 
> 
> also I love Three Houses and Byleth, the best “silent protagonist” ever,, like I could gush all day long about how well Byleth being the player character was handled but I don’t have the time so just take this tiny Byleth fic instead

“I wonder what the hell happened to that little girl,” the newest recruit mutters as he starts the long process of scrubbing his armor. 

(The mission Jeralt’s mercenaries had been sent on was difficult; slaying rampaging hogs on the outskirts of a town in the southern Alliance. A simple mission, but one that proved very long and tortuous with the on-and-off thunderstorms and increasingly muddy ground. The entire ordeal had spanned hours until the area was cleared, and the sun had all but set by the time the mercenaries made it back into town, their outfits absolutely caked with mud.

Jeralt’s young daughter, barely eight years old, had been waiting with one of the other mercenaries in a temporary house on the edge of town. Any normal child would have been ecstatic at the idea of her father returning home safely after being away for an unexpectedly long period of time, but Byleth was evidently no normal child. Her eyes seemed devoid of life as she walked up to her father and merely nodded. “Welcome back, Papa,” she’d said in the most monotone voice he had ever heard.)

“What little girl?” one of the other mercenaries, a very skilled archer, asks.

“Jeralt’s creepy daughter,” the recruit answers.

“Jeralt adores the kid,” the archer replies. “He’d die before he did anything to hurt her. Weird that she’s so distant, isn’t it?” 

“Don’t think I’d ever heard her say more than three words, I swear,” a larger, imposing mercenary adds, sitting on a chair trying to clean his boots.

The archer nods. “That’s the odd thing, yeah? And those eyes. One time, I caught her staring out the window of the house we all were staying in that time. That’s pretty normal, right? And I came back two hours later and she hadn’t fuckin’ moved!”

The newest recruit looks shocked. “Damn, did you make sure she was alive?”

“Hard to tell. She always seems like she’s not breathing.”

The mercenary working on his boots pipes up. “She can pick up a sword and swing it real good, though, for a little girl,” he says.

“No doubt,” the archer agrees. “Better than me, already, and she’s like, what, eight years old?” 

“Eight years old and she looks like she’s already killed more people than all of us combined. Seriously, how do you people sleep at night knowing that kid is nearby? Looks like she’s going to shank someone in their sleep, is what I thought when I first laid eyes on her,” the recruit admits. 

Behind him, the larger mercenary lets out a bellowing laugh. “Scared of just one little girl? Maybe you weren’t cut out for this kind of work.” 

“A little girl with dead eyes and a growing talent for holding sharp things.”

“She’s so tiny, you could punt her five feet in the air.”

The last mercenary in the room, off in the corner sharpening her lance, finally butts in to the conversation. “Don’t let Jeralt hear you saying all these things about his daughter. You’re going to get kicked out.”

The new recruit puts the piece of armor he was cleaning aside and picks up another, muddy piece. “Bet he’s a little scared of her too, honestly.” 

“She’s nothing to be afraid of. She’s probably just slow,” the female mercenary adds, sighing. “I feel bad for Jeralt, honestly. I could never imagine having to take care of a child that can’t appreciate it.” 

“You think she’s slow?” the archer questions.

“There’s something wrong up there-“ she taps her head, “- that’s for sure. I don’t think she really knows much, if I’m being honest. I doubt she knows where she is most of the time, much less what’s going on.”

“I can see it,” the recruit says, lending credence to the female mercenary’s theory. “She didn’t seem to understand what was happening when we came back so late. She just turned to her father and said “welcome back” with a little, creepy nod. Like there wasn’t anything wrong with the situation.”

The largest mercenary finally finishes rubbing all the dirt off of his boots, and he leans back in his chair with a relieved sigh. “Whatever it is, it don’t matter if she seems like she’s gonna be a good mercenary.” The archer gives a nod, and after a pause, the recruit does as well.

There’s a tiny creak of the door and the sound of the doorknob being turned. All four mercenaries turn their heads to see a tiny face peering into the room. Two large, violet eyes and a teal hair tied up in pigtails that are barely passable as pigtails (thanks to the child’s father.)

“Byleth!” the female mercenary exclaims with a warm smile, setting down her polished lance and walking over to where the young girl is now standing in the room after having closed the door. “What’s wrong? Are you lost?” she asks, bending down to Byleth’s eye level.

The little girl blinks. “Are you cleaning up?”

“Hm?”

Byleth’s expression doesn’t change. “Papa asked.”

The woman nods. “Yes, dear. Are you alright?”

“Can I see?”

“Of course,” she replies, pointing to her now sparkling lance, and then shooting a glance at the now two men still hard at work on their armor.

Byleth walks up to the largest man, pigtails bouncing with every step, and looks at his boots. “Good,” she says, looking up at him and nodding slightly after a few seconds of looking over the boots for dirt and destruction. She bounces over to the next man, the recruit still working on his armor, and stops.

“That’s still dirty,” she says, pointing to the armor bits on the clean pile. “Do you want help?”

The recruit grumbles something as he looks over to the armor that is, true to Byleth’s words, still very dirty. “It’s okay,” he sighs, picking up that piece again to start scrubbing. Byleth nods silently, and walks towards the spot on the ground where the archer is seemingly doing nothing but relaxing.

“Are you working?”

“I don’t have much to work on. I didn’t get very muddy because I wasn’t in the mud.”

Byleth almost accepts this and leaves the room to report back to Jeralt when she catches the sight of a bow with a broken string. She points to it. “Is this yours?”

The archer sweats. “Yeah.”

“You should fix it, you know,” Byleth tells him, still blank-faced as ever. She picks up the bow and hands it to the archer without another word, and the archer thinks he’d be less embarrassed if she had said something more about it. Byleth turns towards the door and begins to make her way outside again, her lackluster pigtails bobbing.

“Bye, Byleth,” the mercenary lounging in the chair says (very relieved that Byleth had not noticed the massive hole in the side of his left boot), but by the time the words make it out of his mouth Byleth has already closed the door and begun walking to the small room she and her father are sharing.

—

“Hey, kid,” Jeralt says when he notices his daughter entering the room. He is sitting at the small table eating an apple from a basket. He offers one to Byleth when she walks over to him and she takes it in her small hand. “Everybody doing a good job?”

Byleth looks up at her father with a blank expression and big, violet eyes, before looking down, closing her eyes, and taking a bite of her apple. It’s a small thing, but Jeralt can tell she’s absolutely exasperated with the rest of the mercenary crew. “They’re hopeless,” Byleth says, and Jeralt can’t help but smile at his daughter. 

“Anything else?” he asks, reaching out and ruffling her hair, messing up the pigtails further.

Byleth glances up from her apple. “We should get some new shoes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Jeralt and Byleth deserved the world thank you for coming to my tedtalk


End file.
